Chapter 14
I woke up in a hospital bed, with a female police officer standing beside me.
“What happened to me?” I asked.
“You fainted. The test results aren’t out yet.”
The officer looked at me with sympathy. “With everything going on at home, where is your husband?”Copyright Nôv/el/Dra/ma.Org.
Yes, where was my husband?
I couldn’t even remember how long this ghost of a marriage had gone on.
Tom and I had shared some sweet moments after our wedding, but his sensitivity and insecurity were always there, festering beneath the surface. It wasn’t long before his true colors showed.
Tom began emotionally manipulating me, trying to convince me to become a housewife.
When I refused, tension grew between us. But I always gave in, because I still loved him. I thought Tom felt the same, until Betty came between us……
Tom used to look down on Betty, with her plain appearance and messy private life. Yet, after we got married, he started to enjoy the thrill Betty brought him, the way she played the submissive woman around him.
While I was suffering from morning sickness, Tom was out at karaoke bars and nightclubs with Betty.
When I gave birth to Monica, he was with Betty at her prenatal checkup, though no one knew which of her “brothers” was the father of her child.
I’d been feeling unwell and asked Tom to accompany me to the hospital, but he consistently made excuses, claiming he was too busy. Yet, when Betty came down with a mere cold in the dead of night, Tom promptly carried her to the hospital.
I didn’t have the heart to worry about my own health. After arranging Monica’s funeral, I set aside my work and, with Monica’s ashes in tow, visited the amusement park and aquarium, the places she had always longed to see.
Because of work, I rarely spent time with Monica, but she never blamed me or Tom.
She was such a thoughtful child, yet we were such terrible parents.
While sitting on the carousel, holding Monica’s urn, I heard familiar laughter nearby.
I looked up and saw Tom, who I hadn’t spoken to in a week. He was holding hands with Betty and laughing and joking with Julie.
The radiant smiles on their faces stabbed at my heart. Monica’s greatest wish was to visit the amusement park with her father, even just once!
Yet Julie effortlessly experienced something that Monica never could.
I rushed over to them in a frenzy. “Tom, what are you doing?!”
Tom looked startled by my pale, disheveled appearance.
Betty seemed taken aback too, but quickly composed herself. Seeing me, once the apple of everyone’s eye, now reduced to this state, her face twisted into a triumphant look as she spoke with a false sympathy, “Tom just borrowed some money to save Julie. It’s not like he won’t pay you back. Did you really have to go that far and follow us all the way here?”
Tom regained his composure, looking at me with disgust.“Jessica, why did you come out looking like this? Don’t you find yourself revolting?”